1. Technical Field
The invention relates to the setting and triggering of reminders. More particularly, the invention relates to a method and apparatus for calendaring reminders.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Various Calendaring and associated reminder systems are known. See, for example:
M. Huemoeller, J. Arvada, W. Huemoeller, Personal Activity Scheduling Apparatus, U.S. Pat. No. 5,855,006 (Dec. 29, 1998) (The personal activity scheduling system accesses data from various sources to provide the user with information that is required to enable the user to conveniently and expeditiously schedule activities without requiring access to other sources of information. The personal activity scheduling system can include schedules of various sports activities, cultural events, birthdays and anniversaries, professional meetings and deadlines, and any other temporally based items of interest to the particular individual. Each of these temporally based activities can be associated with data representative of information required by the user to schedule an activity from the list of potential activities into the individual's personal calendar as well as make reservations and ticket purchases using this system.);
S. Chapin, Jr., Computerized Prompting Systems, U.S. Pat. No. 5,931,878 (Aug. 3, 1999) (A computerized prompting system is especially useful for vehicular maintenance and includes a Level of maintenance database with task schedules for selected vehicles and prompt frequencies for those tasks. A prompter initiates a display informing the user that a scheduled maintenance is due to be performed on a selected date and an Internet exchange connects the database to a service center. The system has a capability to print coupons and to receive and incorporate updates from manufacturers.); and
R. Rasansky, L. Denton, III, B, Cynwyd, R. Morris, Scheduling System For Use Between Users On The Web, U.S. Pat. No. 5,960,406 (Sep. 28, 1999) (A computer system for scheduling events between end users of the system. Each end user is granted a unique password protected personal calendar. This calendar is generated from information stored in a database at a central server, and delivered to each end user as standard HTML sent through the Internet. This custom personal calendar is then viewed by the end user in a standard Web Browser. This obviates the need for special software programs to be purchased by end users, and also allows end users of any CPU type to read their calendars. When an end user uses the system to send an Invitation or Announcement to others on the system, the sending end user has the option of sending Email in addition to posting that information in the calendars'of others. When an end user sends an Invitation or Announcement to a person who is not an Appointnet user, then the Appointnet system automatically creates a unique calendar for the recipient, and sends and Email to that person. Individuals who use the present system can post reminders to themselves, send announcements to people they know, and make appointments with people they know. When these messages are sent, the communications is nearly instantaneous because the system makes one record and allows both (or many) parties to view it.).
While such systems as are known are useful, they are not specifically adapted for use in large enterprises where the scheduling and execution of such events as reminders must be balanced against system capacity and bandwidth for several types of events having various levels of urgency.
It would be advantageous to provide an electronic calendar that includes such features as recurring reminders, the ability to divide unpredictable workloads into equal pieces, a templatized content management system that uses preparsing for efficiency, a scheduling algorithm that reduces transient spikes in delivery volume, dynamic delivery and recovery algorithms, methods for splitting and coordinating the delivery workload across several computers, all within the context of a calendar architecture for supporting a large enterprise.